The Thing About Dieties
by Amber Penglass
Summary: SPOILER ALERT Shepard's existence didn't follow the normal rules. Any of them. So when the end comes, new rules are required to handle the savior of the galaxy. A new take on what happens to Shepard after death. 1000 word vignette.


**The Thing About Deities**

_Amber Penglass_

* * *

It was beautiful, of course. Flawless beaches, crystalline water that was sweet. A sky so deep a blue you were afraid it would consume you if you stared too long. Trees laden with fruit, platters on tables that filled with whatever you wanted as soon as you looked at them. Goblets that were full to overflowing with any sort of drink you could imagine.

She'd found, after some experimenting, that she didn't need to breathe underwater, and she had developed a peculiar ability to fly. The laws of physics were absolutely malleable, it seemed. She'd even awoken one morning, decided she was bored of the beach, and had found herself instead atop an icy mountain, with all the world laid out clear as crystal before her.

The quiet was nice. The peace was bliss. Sadness was something still present, yet it remained...distant. She thought of what she'd accomplished and saved, and felt joy. She was alone, but she felt no loneliness. She knew to her bones that she could now rest.

This unquestioning peace lasted for what could have been a day, or an eon. There was no sense of time, no sense of encroaching purpose. It was...perfection. It was, she was pretty sure, Heaven.

And that was the only flaw in her existence.

If this was Heaven, where was everyone else? It would be no hardship to remain there alone, although she wouldn't have minded company on occasion. This place had provided everything she could possibly want. She figured it was only a matter of time before it provided companionship.

She was right.

She'd painted the horizon with swathes of pink and lavender, had hung the sun low in the sky and deepened its color to a molten gold. The water refracted the golden rays until she was sitting with her toes being tickled by lapping waves of liquid light. The silken sand was warm, and a soft breeze tickled her arms.

She knew he was coming. How she knew, she couldn't say, but she knew. He sat down beside her on the sand. He wasn't so much 'male' as he was just what her mind perceived as more masculine than feminine. If pressed, she'd say the person beside her had no real gender at all.

"So, why the beach?" She asked.

"It seemed appropriate. Beaches see the most diverse ecosystems," he replied. "You have water and land, a meeting of two entirely different worlds. For you, it was appropriate."

"Hadn't thought of it that way," she replied, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. She still hadn't looked at her guest. "Why can't I make other people? I can make anything else, why not people?"

He didn't respond, and she sighed, and asked another.

"Why don't I remember any of this from last time?" Last time she'd died, she meant.

This question, he answered.

"When you have a body, memories are held in the brain. The brain in the body you were restored to had created no memories, no synapses or neural pathways, to recall what you experienced while separated. Just because you are not aware of something, does not mean it does not exist, or did not happen."

For the time after her resurrection, she'd used that memory of nothingness as further proof to her life-long belief that there was nothing beyond what you could see and feel and touch and experience. Even now, she wondered if this was all a dream. If it was, it was a good one. If it did end, so be it. She'd deal with it. But for now...

"What happened to the others?" She asked. She'd been afraid to, but now that he was here, she couldn't not ask.

He told her, and she wept. She wept both for joy and for sorrow, for loss and for gain. The cycle of each race was unique, it seemed. That was good. Pressing what was right for one species on another was...well, it wasn't something he would do.

"Will I be able to see them again?"

He was silent, and she knew the answer, could feel his sorrow at her disappointment. His lack of a response led to her final question.

"How am I here? You know I never believed in you. Last I checked, at least believing in you was sort of a prerequisite to getting into Heaven."

"It is," he said, and she saw him nod in her peripheral vision. "But this isn't Heaven. At least, not the one you're thinking of." He shifted, leaning forward. "That's one of the perks of being a deity. You get to make the rules. And, when needed, even make a second heaven for someone who broke the first set of rules." He stood, dusting sand off his hands. "You may not have believed in me, but I believed in you. And you fulfilled every expectation. I figured that deserved some sort of reward."

She stood, looking at him just as he turned and began to walk away. He appeared both near, and distant, all at once. As she turned his unexpected answer over in her thoughts, he called something back to her.

"If you want to make people," he said. "You have to first figure out how to make a soul. That's the hard part."

"I thought that was your job?" She called back. She heard him laugh.

"Second heaven, second set of rules, remember? This is your playground. You would have been bored for eternity with anything else, and what kind of reward would that be? Don't screw this up, Shepard. I don't break my own rules often." And then he was gone.

A soul, she thought. She closed her eyes, and recalled the people who had given endlessly of themselves to save a galaxy hardly worth saving. If ever there were souls worth recreating, it was theirs.

When she opened her eyes, twenty familiar silver-golden mists hung in the air, twenty shapes that laughed and danced.

It was a good start.

* * *

Subtracting the title, my name, and the author's notes, this is exactly 1000 words, check it!

This was a little idea brought about by a conversation with a fellow ME player. In Mass Effect I, there is a conversation you can have with Ashley about God. Ashley believes in God, and while it's never stated outright it's indicated she's a pretty standard Christian. As Shepard, you have the option of agreeing with her or instructing her to keep her religious stuff to herself, more or less (I'm going off of a sketchy memory here). I always went the 'open to the idea of a God' option, while my friend (being atheist) went with the other option. One of the reasons I always went with the 'open to God' option is I, personally, just don't like the idea of our Hero going through all this without some sort of reward at the end. I'm a sucker for happy endings, damnit.

So, that brought on the question, if Shepard were an atheist, and God did really exist...would God really just let Shepard die into nothingness? Or go to Hell, or whatever second option there is. Thus, this piece. It has nothing to do with my personal beliefs, it's just something that popped into my head and wouldn't go away. I fully expect ranting, raving, dissenting reviews. In the words of Johnny Storm, 'Flame on!'

- Amber


End file.
